Azernews.Az

Germany's Bayerngas intends to join the Nabucco gas pipeline consortium as a seventh member, boosting the project's competitiveness in a bid to transport gas from the Caspian region to Europe, the group said on Friday, Reuters reported.

"Nabucco Gas Pipeline International welcomes Bayerngas' intent on becoming one of the Nabucco shareholders," said the consortium in a statement on Friday.

"Negotiations with the six current shareholders will begin immediately to determine the future share split within the consortium," it added.

It also said the bid by Bayerngas, a gas transport and distribution company based in Bavarian state capital Munich, would be discussed at a meeting between the Austrian Economy Minister and his counterpart in Bavaria later on Friday.

"We wholeheartedly welcome the Bavarian move ... Germany's gas demand will rise not least because of its nuclear energy exit decision and due to falling gas production in Europe," Gerhard Roiss, chief executive of Austrian energy company OMV , said in a statement.

Nabucco, which is backed by OMV, Germany's RWE , Hungary's MOL , Turkey's Botas, BEH of Bulgaria and Romania's Transgaz , aims to transport up to 31 billion cubic metres a year by 2017.

The European Union supports Nabucco as a means of reducing the continent's reliance on Russian energy.

Three consortia have been invited to submit bids on Oct. 1 to build a pipeline to transport Azeri gas. Nabucco faces competition from the Interconnector Greece-Italy (IGI) Poseidon and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).

The partners in Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz II gas field -- Norway's Statoil, Azeri state oil firm Socar and BP -- are said to have grown frustrated, however, that so far there are no absolute guarantees from transporters that they can fulfil gas purchase obligations they take on.

BP said last week it also was mulling a pipeline from Turkey to the Romanian-Hungarian border called South-East Europe Pipeline (SEEP).